


A Shadow (of You and I)

by wintergrey



Series: The Blood-Dimmed Tide [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Distrust, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergrey/pseuds/wintergrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"JARVIS turns out the projections and the scanners, alters the windows to let in the natural evening light—the world shifts from shadows and icy blues echoing the arc reactor on Tony’s chest to the golds and reds of the evening sun slanting through the dusty Manhattan sky. Their shadows stretch out across the room as though they’re dancing on a polished ballroom floor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shadow (of You and I)

"Tony, are you listening?" Pepper is getting tired of standing here with her arms out.

"I'm looking at your body, why do you think I'd be listening? All the blood has left my ears." Tony is kneeling in front of her, squinting at a projection of fine lines laid out over the white jumpsuit she's wearing. "You are very curvy, I'll have you know. Almost inconveniently so."

"Thanks, Tony. Just what every girl wants to hear." She exhales slowly. It's not every woman who gets to have Tony Stark on his knees—literally or figuratively—on a regular basis. "Are you nearly done? We need to talk about the meeting."

"We need to talk about your hips," Tony says with that little purr in his voice that tells her he's not really complaining about her curves at all. "And how I'm going to shape this suit so that it actually packs up properly. I'm thinking of having a kind of fan-thing going here." He cups her hips in both hands, thumbs against her hipbones, and hums happily. "All elegant little segments."

She's always considered herself a bit of a beanpole, really. Tall and skinny and awkward. Ginger hair, freckles, braces for the longest time. A complete disaster, to be honest. Why Tony Stark sees anything in her physically is beyond her, given the women who keep throwing themselves at him. But, in spite of his hedonistic public image, Tony Stark is about far more than the physical and Pepper knows it. He's sensual, certainly, but he's not shallow.

"Tony," she says, and his eyes snap up to her face as though she's shocked him. It's not the volume, it's just the little edge she puts behind it that he's been trained to respond to after all these years. "The meeting."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going." He gives her a winning smile. He has no idea what meeting she's talking about.

"You're not going."

At first he looks pleased—getting out of a meeting is always a treat—then his expression shifts toward suspicion. "Why am I not going to this meeting again? JARVIS, show me design version eleven-seven-three of Miss Potts' suit. 3D and on my table."

"Can I put my arms down?" she asks as JARVIS projects a version of her suit—the suit she doesn't really want—facing away from her.

"Yeah, you can." Tony sits down and skates his chair over to the wide, translucent blue panel of his workbench. "So, this meeting I'm going to..."

"Not going to, Tony." Now she can pick up her S-pad to review the invitation. "After what happened to Hank Pym, there's no way you can be there. You, Reed, and Dr. Banner all in the same place? It's inviting disaster. Project Insight is over but we don’t know who’s still out there, with what weapons."

"This is about the Pym stuff?" Now she has his attention, his stylus hits the table.

"And I believe another attempt to get you to lend your arc reactor technology to Reed's weapons systems on the Quinn jets, among other things." Even after everything else, Tony is determined not to let his work be used for violence if he can at all avoid it. "You can teleconference in, I'm working it out with Sue."

"Damn it, Pepper. You know I have to be there." Tony runs a hand through his hair so that it forms curling ridges. He needs a trim; Pepper makes a note. "Richards is so damn... arrogant. And if he disagrees with me, he'll just turn off the feeds. He always does."

"You'd think with everything you two have in common, you'd get along." Pepper gives him an arch look, one hand on her hip.

"That's offensive." Tony points at her, scowling, then his expression clears as he looks her over from head to toe. "Hold that pose, I didn't know your hips did that. They're so swivel-y. That... how do your legs not fall off? JARVIS, copy that pose onto the suit model."

"I meant your massive intellects but your massive egos are apparently even bigger, blocking out everything, sucking up all the oxygen in the room..." At least she can keep working while she holds the pose. "But you don't have to worry, I'll go in your place and keep the feed open. No arguing, either. Rhodey would agree with me."

"Oh, and Rhodey's the expert on what I should be doing." Tony runs his hand over one of her hips again but it's only to cup her ass.

"No, I am.” She is, too. No one knows him like she does and Pepper loves that about him. About them. “Are you grabbing my ass for science or for fun?"

"Science is fun. But I am totally grabbing your ass for great justice here. If you're making me stay home, I'm making you take a suit."

"The suit I don't want?" Pepper allows him to kiss her, tilting her chin down slightly so that he knows he may—and he does, just a gentle kiss for the moment.

“It’s that or you put me and Reed Richards in the same room again.” Tony shrugs as though it can’t be helped.

“I might take it if it fit in my Birkin bag.” Pepper gives him a wicked grin. Teasing him is terrible but also so easy.

“The Birkin?” Tony looks horrified. “You’re a cruel, cruel woman. That thing is practically a lunch box, it’s so small. I’d have to compromise on the suit.”

“Compromise is good for you,” she reminds him. “And you love a challenge.”

“I don’t want to compromise on anything that’s going to keep you safe.” Tony cups her cheek in one hand, kisses her again as he takes her S-pad away from her and throws it somewhere across the room. “What if I call Birkin and have them make you a custom bag for it? I’ll buy you a rainbow of them,” he promises between kisses. “A spectrum, even. One for every pair of shoes you own.”

“I would settle for one in buff and one in black,” Pepper says, laughing. At least she can drop her pose and slide her arms around his neck, lean into him and his kisses as he undoes the bun in her hair. “If I were going to take the suit.”

“What’s buff? Is that like naked? Because I’m really feeling a naked vibe right now.”

“Right now? As opposed to the rest of the time?” Pepper can’t resist tugging his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans so that she can slide her hands up under it.

“Especially now. JARVIS, set the windows to natural-private and look away.” Tony kisses down the side of her neck. “I intend to have sexual relations with Miss Potts. For science.”

“Should I be making notes for the suit, sir?” JARVIS wants to know. “While I’m not looking.”

“No,” Pepper says firmly. “And I didn’t say I was taking the suit.”

“Well, now that you mention it…” Tony pulls back, looking thoughtful.

“We are not having suit sex, Tony.” Pepper takes his face in her hands and forces him to meet her gaze. She knows where his mind goes. Same place, every time. “Not ever.”

“We could be the first members of the mile-high club without the plane, though,” he says plaintively.

JARVIS turns out the projections and the scanners, alters the windows to let in the natural evening light—the world shifts from shadows and icy blues echoing the arc reactor on Tony’s chest to the golds and reds of the evening sun slanting through the dusty Manhattan sky. Their shadows stretch out across the room as though they’re dancing on a polished ballroom floor.

“I love you, Tony Stark, but no,” Pepper tells him one more time. “Remember all the sex you were planning on having? Ever?”

“All of it, yeah.” Tony nods seriously, biting his lower lip. He can feign being contrite better than anyone Pepper’s ever met. It’d be delicious—those ridiculously long lashes fluttering and those dark eyes turned to luminous pools of regret—if she thought it went any deeper than that. “There’s a whole lot of it. None of it involves suits.”

“Good boy,” she says, running her fingers through his unruly hair. Tomorrow, next week, sometime, he’ll forget they had this conversation and come back around to it. Pepper kisses him anyway.

“I love you.” As he undoes her jumpsuit at one shoulder, he nudges her back until she runs into the worktable. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“You often say that when you think you’re going to have sex with me.” Pepper tugs the tie out of her hair, shakes it loose. “I’m beginning to think they’re related.”

“Cynic.” Tony kisses her bare shoulder, watching her face through his lowered lashes. “You’re always amazing. I just focus on it better when you’re naked.”

“Excuse me, sir,” JARVIS says crisply. “But Colonel Rhodes is on his way up via the lower levels.”

“And you didn’t notice?” Tony pushes away from Pepper, leaving her to put herself back together again. “I want extra masking protocols, scanners, and an interference field. Cover those windows as well.” Dark falls over the room again, swallowing up their shadows.

“I was aware, sir. But Colonel Rhodes is not yet classed as a threat.”

“He’s not a threat,” Pepper says sharply. The last thing she needs is paranoia getting hold of Tony—she knows how quickly the switch can flip. “You don’t need interfer—”

“I trust Rhodey, I just don’t trust the bastards he works for.” Tony is already tapping away at a projected console. “So I do need it. They could have hidden scanners or scrapers in any of the however-fucking-many purple heart shiny things he has.”

“Colonel Rhodes has arrived,” JARVIS says as the door slides open and Rhodey strides in. Pepper remembers when seeing him made her feel better. He’s as constant in his course as Tony is ephemeral. Since Project Insight, she doesn’t know who to trust.

“How come you don’t work for me?” Tony says, seemingly out of the blue at the same time as Rhodey is saying,

“We need to talk.” Rhodey stops three steps in, shakes his head. “How come I don’t work for you? Because I’m in the Army, Tony. Also, I don’t recall you asking in years, at least not while you were sober.”

“Army doesn’t deserve you.” Tony spins around to face him. “Tell him, Pepper.”

“I think Rhodey’s fine where he is.” Pepper twists the tie back into her hair. “He’s a big boy. And if he’s here because of that meeting he’s not supposed to know about, you can tell him you’re not going.”

“Right.” Tony points at her, then back at Rhodey. “Not going. Being in the same room as Reed Richards? I’d sooner get naked with Justin Hammer.”

“Tony!” There’s an image Pepper instantly wants to erase from her mind. Rhodey’s expression is as curdled as her stomach.

“Please tell me that will never happen,” Rhodey says to her. “Like ever. So I can sleep tonight.”

“Never,” Pepper promises. “Anyway, Tony is telling the truth, he’s not going. I am.”

“No, no, no,” Rhodey says, but Tony cuts him off.

“I’m building her a suit.” Tony snaps his fingers, taps a projection, and pulls up an image of—

“Tony!” Pepper leaps into action, swatting at the projection until JARVIS mercifully sweeps it out of sight. Rhodey has the decency to have turned away immediately. “Oh, my God, I am really sorry about that, Rhodey. And completely embarrassed, Tony.” Her cheeks are on fire.

“Oh, sorry, that’s Pepper without the suit.” Tony tries again. “Okay, you can look now, Rhodey. Pepper, you should never apologize for how incredibly hot you are, even in wireframe.”

“I’m not apologetic, I’m mortified. There’s a difference.” Pepper smacks him in the back of the head for that—not terribly hard because she doesn’t actually want to hurt him. It just makes her feel a little better.

“Very nice.” Rhodey’s tone is appreciative. At least he’s recovered, even if Pepper hasn’t. He walks around the projected suit. It is kind of pretty. “Weapons? It’s a little light.”

“None other than the propulsion units, which as we all know are pretty damn effective.” Tony slides his chair over toward the image. “I’m making up for any structural reductions with an energy matrix. Instead of an arc reactor projection in a beam, it uses a microweb of conductors to diffuse the power over the surface of the suit. JARVIS, run the simulation.”

The Pepper-projection in the middle of the room brightens, first over the chest where the reactor lies, and then out in ribbons of force that follow her curves to wrap her in light. Simulated bullets race toward her in slow motion, collapse against the barrier, and shatter into dust.

“At that level, it’s sustainable for up to thirty minutes,” Tony says, tapping his stylus against his palm. “In theory. However, in an emergency…”

The Pepper-projection is overwhelmed by a half-dozen massive drone suits that materialize around her. She crumples out of sight, defeated, but then brightness flares, almost blinding even though it’s only a projection. She rises again, untouched, through the debris of her disintegrating attackers. It’s beautiful. Pepper doesn’t feel quite so ambivalent about it now.

“What’s her capacity at, JARVIS?”

“This simulation results in seventeen percent power remaining,” JARVIS says crisply. “A significant improvement over earlier simulations in which—”

“You can stop now,” Tony snaps.

“—Miss Potts was killed. I believe you said ‘cooked in the shell like a tasty, tasty lobster’.”

“Tony…” And there’s that ambivalence about the suit again. Pepper sighs, shaking her head. Now she remembers why she didn’t want one. That and she’s never wanted to get deeper into that part of Tony’s world. It’s hard enough keeping him from getting lost in it when she’s on the outside.

“What? I’m working on it. It’s cool, right?” Tony turns to Rhodey, pleading. “I mean, if it works, it’s cool. You have to admit. It’s cool.”

“If it works.” Rhodey gives Tony an arch look. “It’s kind of cool, I will give you that. If it works.”

“I will not take any chances with Pepper.” Tony tries to reassure both of them, looking very earnest. “Unlike with you.”

“And yourself.” Rhodey’s thoroughly disapproving about that—and remarkably sanguine about the fact that Tony has, and will again, made some questionable changes to things made for Rhodey’s use. His concern, as usual, is for Tony.

Pepper wants, almost more than she wants for this whole horrible HYDRA thing to be over, to know for certain that Rhodey hasn’t been compromised in any way, even unwittingly. Of course, he’d almost be safer if he had been. He’d be of use to ruthless, powerful people, instead of being an obstacle. Pepper’s stomach hurts. She should buy stock in her favourite antacid company.

“What’s in the matrix?” Rhodey is leaning on the workbench now, arms crossed over his chest. He looks almost relaxed.

Tony hesitates, a fraction of a second that no one but Pepper and Rhodey would ever notice, before speaking. It’s that fraction of a second that crystalizes things for Pepper. She’s angry, hot and deep, because the trust between them is damaged and it wasn’t any one of them who caused it.

“Moissanite for the primary channels,” Tony says, forging on through the tension as he always does. “Sapphire for the stepdown diffusion. I know it looks a bit pink but it’s actually a sapphire matrix.”

There had been a few shining moments in the last months when she’d been able to believe things were really going to work out: not just for her and for Tony but for the world. Moments in which she’d dared to breathe and to plan for the next breath and the one after it. That was long gone now. Project Insight might have failed but its shadow still lies across them all, making it so hard for them to really see each other for who they really are anymore.

“Where’d you get moissanite?” Rhodey’s looking at the internal blueprints, the ones that are complete Greek to Pepper. “Manufactured?”

“For the test suits. For the final version, I have a meteor lying around,” Tony says absent-mindedly, watching the simulation results scroll past on the air in front of him.

“Meteor? I didn’t know there were any left in—”

“Yeah, yeah, only one that size in the world. It’s priceless. She never lets me buy her jewelry, right, Pepper?” Now Tony spins around to look at her. “So I was kind of trying to slip one past her. But she doesn’t want the suit either.”

The invisible casualties of Project Insight are the greatest losses. The ones Pepper can’t forgive. Hope. Faith. Certainty. Trust. She can’t just let that go.

“I do,” Pepper says, surprisingly herself with how strong her voice is. “Want the suit. Forget about the Birkin, just make it so I can carry it. And put something on it I can actually use to help people. Maybe if Rhodey helps you test it, it’ll be done faster.”

“The… you want… the suit,” Tony says tentatively. They’re both staring at her as though seeing her for the first time.

“Stop gaping, get working, boys,” Pepper orders. She picks her S-pad up off the floor, then heads for the door. “JARVIS, keep Mr. Stark up to date on my departure plans. I need to call Janet Pym, make sure she has everything she needs.”

 

 


End file.
